About the author

Donn Risolo has been a soccer writer, editor and publicist since 1973. His new book, “Soccer Stories: Anecdotes, Oddities, Lore and Amazing Feats,” was released recently by the University of Nebraska Press.

"From conspiracy to controversy, this is a unique look at famous and not-so-famous incidents from world soccer. There's something here for all who love the game."

-- JP Dellacamera
World Cup and Olympic soccer commentator

"Risolo's Soccer Stories is precisely what it promises to be .... The author delivers it all in conversational, enthusiastic, and readable prose."

-- Benjamin D. Lisle
Journal of Sport History

"Fans will get a kick out of Soccer Stories: Anecdotes, Oddities, Lore and Amazing Feats. Read about highlights in soccer history from around the world, including Brazilian players paid in cattle, an African club that scored 149 goals against itself in one game, and more."

Landon Donovan won an unprecedented seventh U.S. Player of the Year award in a landslide over runner-up Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey in balloting involving nearly 200 journalists nationwide.

Donovan, who first won the honor in 2002, attracted 403 points based on three for a first-place vote, two for second and one for third. Bradley picked up 169 points and Dempsey 157. The only other multiple winners in the 20-year history of the award– organized by the national radio show Futbol de Primera and until recently sponsored by Honda–are goalkeeper Kasey Keller (1999 and 2005) and striker Eric Wynalda (1992 and 1996).

The speedy attacking midfielder-withdrawn forward probably became a favorite for the 2010 award with his stellar play early in the year for Everton, but he cinched it by scoring in three of the USA’s four games at the World Cup, including the dramatic winner against Algeria in added-on time that put the Americans into the second round. He then returned home and helped the Los Angeles Galaxy finish the MLS regular season with the league’s best record. [January 5]

Comment: Once dismissed by the Los Angeles Times as “the overrated Landon Donovan” following the first of his two attempts to make an impact in Europe with Bayer Leverkusen, later criticized for disappearing in this match and that, the USA’s all-time scoring leader in 2010 cemented his status as not only the face of the sport in this country but a face that some average Americans actually recognize.

This country’s first notable soccer player was, probably, Archie Stark, a Scottish-born center forward who dominated the original American Soccer League in the 1920s and was dubbed “The Babe Ruth of Soccer” by a young newspaper columnist named Ed Sullivan. From the early ’30s, oldtimers fondly recall a ball artiste named Billy Gonsalves. Fast-forward to the 1970s, when the NASL tried but failed to make league scoring leader Kyle Rote Jr. its All-American Boy, and the 1980s, when it succeeded, somewhat, in planting that title on New York Cosmos midfielder Rick Davis. Since then, the country has produced several outstanding players, like Hugo Perez, Tab Ramos and Claudio Reyna, as well as personalities like bohemian gladfly defender Alexi Lalas, the fiery goal-scorer Wynalda and teen-idol Cobi Jones.

It has been said repeatedly that what American soccer needs is a superstar–whatever that means. It is doubtful, however, that the general American public would appreciate the subtle skills of a Xavi, a Zidane, a Cantona, a Maldini. An incisive pass, a simple swerve, a change of direction, an immaculate take-away: all would be lost on a viewership peering in on soccer only occasionally. Donovan, however, does what Americans understand, has a track record of doing so, and is comfortable before cameras and facing a horde of reporters in front of his locker.

Donovan has asked for a respite after several months of play, so it’s unlikely that he will return to Europe any time soon and add to his credentials this winter. As such, enjoy his reign as “That American Soccer Player.” Certainly, no successor is on the horizon, and that puts the sport’s longterm future on the fickle U.S. pop culture front in doubt.

[Full disclosure: One ballot went to Donovan, Bradley and Steve Cherundolo, who served the role of grown-up on the USA back line in South Africa. At 31 and playing for the obscure Hannover 96, it’s doubtful that the smart, energenic Cherundolo will ever get the credit he deserves.]